Violent racism is not a thing of the past in the United States — far from it. Ahead of elections for city government positions in Marysville, Michigan, that are set for November, candidates gathered for a public forum this past week where one city council candidate named Jean Cramer launched into a display of violent racism. Asked about whether the city should be “more aggressive in attracting foreign-born citizens” to help spur local economic growth, Cramer took the question an entirely different direction. She flatly insisted that if elected, she’d intend to try and “keep Marysville a white community as much as possible.”
The response earned harsh criticism from essentially everyone in the room who chimed in. Local media says that a “brief guffaw fell over the council meeting room,” and when fellow council candidate Mike Deising spoke up, he quipped that he was “just checking the calendar here and making sure it’s still 2019.”
Cramer faced questioning after the event about her stance — and somehow, it got worse. Rather than only trying to keep non-whites from the general community, she also suggested that interracial families should be essentially torn apart because in her view, those kinds of bonds are out of line.
Discussing the town’s currently serving mayor pro tem herself, Cramer told the local Times-Herald:
‘As long as — how can I put this? What Kathy Hayman doesn’t know is that her family is in the wrong. A husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids. That’s how it’s been from the beginning of — how can I say — when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.’
To be clear — there is no innate biological basis for race like Cramer suggests. Skin color as a substantive, systematic differentiation is not built into human biology, no matter what zombie Nazi ideology about racial purity she decides to wheel out.
Wildly enough, she’s not even the first person on this level to attract some national attention recently for stumping against races mixing. Hoschton, Georgia’s City Councilman Jim Cleveland told local media after a tumult arose over allegations that the mayor dismissed an otherwise qualified applicant to be city manager because they were black:
‘I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage. That’s the way I was brought up and that’s the way I believe.’
In this case, Marysville’s current Mayor Dan Damman noted to local media that at least Cramer’s viewpoints saw the light of day before votes go the polls this November. As he put it:
‘The only positive result from this clear expression of overt and unapologetic racism is that this candidate’s views were put on display before our voters go the polls in November.’
The controversy is unfolding like an omen of similar issues that will no doubt continue to mark the lead-up to the 2020 presidential race. President Donald Trump continues to define his time in office with violent racial antagonism, and he’s not backing down, even after someone using his own rhetoric killed 22 people at a Walmart in the immigrant community of El Paso.
Featured Image via screenshot
